This invention relates to the field of highway maintenance and safety. More particularly, a reversible highway worker warning sign apparatus is disclosed which is used to protect highway workers in construction areas.
During road construction, highway workers are often placed in a dangerous position. Because most road construction occurs while traffic is still moving, cars move past the construction site, often at a fast speed. Highway workers are subject to the oncoming traffic and must perform their construction duties simultaneously with keeping a careful watch out for oncoming traffic. Because the highway worker is often distracted from safety precautions due to their attention to their construction jobs, highway departments have instituted various types of safety measures.
In particularly dangerous situations, a worker carrying a highway safety sign guards construction crews, usually having one sign at each end of the construction zone. When lanes are blocked off, these cautionary highway signs and flagmen also direct traffic such that vehicles may use only one lane of the roadway for both directions of traffic. In order to accomplish this, one flagman will stand at the beginning of the construction site with a dual stop/slow warning sign. A second flagman stands at the other end of the construction site with a similar stop/slow highway sign. As traffic is directed through the construction site, one worker will display the “slow” side of the sign to oncoming traffic while another worker, at the opposite end of the traffic pattern, will display the “stop” side of the sign. This allows traffic to move slowly past the construction site in one direction. Once the line of traffic has moved past the construction site, the workers will then reverse their signs so that the traffic can move in the other direction.
The double-sided signs in these highway construction sites often serve the purpose of adequately protecting the highway workers, particularly in daylight. However, under particularly hazardous conditions such as highway construction on an interstate highway where speeds are often in excess of 70 miles per hour, further safety measures are necessary. One particular type of safety measure that improves the safety of the construction sight is the attachment of warning signals or other lighted devices to the stop/slow highway sign.
One such highway warning sign device is found in the 1998 patent issued to Zumbuhl, U.S. Pat. No. 5,755,051. Zumbuhl disclosed a special type of bracket assembly to support a sign. The sign itself is inserted into the bracket assembly. Zumbuhl also has warning lights attached on the top and bottom of the bracket. The stop and slow signs are illuminated with the addition of the upper and lower lights. However, there are other means which would increase the recognition of the hazard sign and that can be attached to already existing traffic hazard signs.
It is an object of this invention to provide a visually lighted traffic hazard sign that may be readily attached to signs that already exist and are already in use throughout the United States. A particular advantage of supplying a lighting system that can be attached to the already existing signs is the decrease in cost associated with completing the entire system, since new signs would not have to be made or signs would not have to be fitted to the other brackets.
It is another object of this invention to provide a lighting system for a traffic hazard sign that is itself reversible. One side of the lights would show red, to signify the side of the sign with the “stop” emblem. The lights on the opposite or “slow” side of the sign would show yellow.
It is a still further object of this invention to provide a set of red and yellow lights that could alternately flash, strobe slowly, or strobe quickly. Other and further objects of this invention will become obvious upon reading the below described specification.